Woman gives birth to baby in Ottawa jail cell after guards allegedly ignore pleas for help

OTTAWA — Gionni Lee Garlow came into the world five pounds, nine ounces — on the floor of an Ottawa jail cell.

The baby’s mother, Julie Bilotta, a 26-year-old woman from Cornwall, was in custody at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Sept. 29 when she tried in vain to convince staff that she was in labour and needed help.

Bryonie Baxter, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, which advocates on behalf of woman who come into conflict with the law, told the Citizen that Bilotta screamed for hours but the nursing staff at the jail did not take her seriously.

“They took her vitals. They told her it was indigestion,” Baxter said, adding that Bilotta, who was eight months pregnant, was later told she was in phantom labour.

According to Baxter and Bilotta’s mother, Kim Hurtubise, who have both spoken several times with the still-incarcerated woman, the jail guards responded to Bilotta’s pleas by telling her she was making too much noise and moving her to a segregated cell.

While she was being moved, they say, a guard told Bilotta she shouldn’t have become pregnant if she couldn’t deal with pain and it would only get worse when the “real” labour began.

Baxter said that from the information she has gathered it appears that Bilotta was never given an internal examination. She said the nurse only believed the labour was real when one of the baby’s feet emerged in the breech birth, hours after her first complaints.

Jail staff called an ambulance — although Baxter has questions about how promptly that call was made — and the baby was delivered in the cell by paramedics.

Baxter, who is also president of the Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario, said the story is an extreme example of a trend of deteriorating jail conditions across the province, especially among provincial facilities like the OCDC.

“I keep coming back to that image of a woman in labour in prison begging for someone to listen and take her seriously and get her medical help,” Baxter said. “And instead she’s put in segregation. She’s made fun of.”

Had Bilotta been taken to the hospital on time, Baxter said, she likely would have been given a C-section instead of having her life and that of her baby put at risk.

Hurtubise said her daughter needed a transfusion after losing a lot of blood. She said what happened to her daughter was “very, very wrong” and that something needs to be done.

“When you scream in pain for, I don’t know, nine hours and nobody believes you and nobody helps you … and nobody even calls a doctor in to check her or brings her to the hospital,” she said. “They shouldn’t be treated like animals — or worse.”

Baxter said she is taking a complaint to the College of Nurses of Ontario and to the Ombudsman of Ontario.

Madeleine Meilleur, the provincial Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, said Wednesday that while she couldn’t comment on the specifics of the case, there will be an automatic investigation and she will read its findings.

Meilleur, who before entering politics worked as a delivery-room nurse, said that pregnant women in jail are supposed to get normal care, like any other expectant mother would.

“They are followed by a doctor and when they go into labour they are transferred to the hospital,” Meilleur said. “That’s the normal procedure.”

Bilotta is still in jail awaiting trial on fraud and drug charges. Baxter said she should be released until trial to be with her first child. The baby, who appears to be healthy after some initial breathing difficulties, is currently in the care of Hurtubise.